San Francisco Chronicle – June 21, 2006:
AT&T has issued an updated privacy policy that takes effect Friday. The changes are significant because they appear to give the telecom giant more latitude when it comes to sharing customers’ personal data with government officials.
The new policy says that AT&T — not customers — owns customers’ confidential info and can use it “to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process.”
The policy also indicates that AT&T will track the viewing habits of customers of its new video service — something that cable and satellite providers are prohibited from doing.
This is another reason to vote out this do-nothing no-good congress.
Identity theft is an out-of-control freight train and can only be solved by a pro-active, future-looking, tech-savvy congress.
But does this describe the lazy, corporate-lackey, decade-behind leaders we have in there now? No way!
Vote the bums out!
One of the reasons that, as of TODAY, I am no longer an AT&T customer!
Corporate Body? The Corporate Entity? Having indemnification rights? You mean someone is actually responsable, but they dont have to say who?
And while people are woried about robots, cyborgs, and AI programs self replicating and overwhelming humanity, the corporation already has. Nobody is in charge, everybody is a lowly employee, and the corporation lives on.
And US Top Execs make $42,000 a day average …
Wake up people! You must speak to them in the only language they understand…..MONEY!
If you are a current AT&T customer cancel you services with them immediately, and let them know why! If you aren’t send them a quick note and tell them you never will be!
The only way to stop companies and the government from behaving this way is to stop enabling them to do so. By doing business with these corporations and the government you are giving your informed consent for them to do whatever they want!
BOTTOM LINE = If you do business with any of these corporations and/or the government then you have no excuse to complain about what they do.
Well, I have no choice. It’s either AT&T or Comcast for my high-speed Internet where I am. I have to take the lesser of two evils…and yeah, I’m choosing AT&T over Comcast because I’d rather give up the net than to EVER go back to Comcast.
I don’t even have cable TV because I can’t stand Comcast that much. And actually, I haven’t missed TV at all in the two years I gave it up.
So it’s not as easy as you say Darlene….I can’t just up and cancel my DSL line or I would be cut off. If I went with Comcast I would be cut off too as my experience with them (and your mileage may vary I’m sure), is they were down a lot of the time….their customer service sucked and they throttled a lot of the content I was using it for. When I would lose connection I would check with my neighbors to see if it was the area that was down, I would call them up and tell them they had a problem and they didn’t even want to hear about it. It was always “reboot your computer then go into your control panel and check blah blah blah”. I’m like “HEY! Hello? The service is down in the AREA….how are my settings also bringing down my neighbors connection?” That never worked anyway….so I would tell them “ok, I don’t have a control panel I’m on Linux” and they’re like “What is that?” or “We don’t support or condone Linux”. Yes, I actually had some guy tell me they don’t condone the use of Linux with their service. I just hung up.
Sorry for the rant…but as you can see, I’d rather face AT&T and the NSA than ever go back to Comcast.
I wonder if or when this will apply to Cingular customers.
I’ve always wondered how long until there is a market for a VPN privacy service.
All you would use AT&T or Fill-In-The-Blank for would be to establish a VPN connection to an offshore ISP, where your privacy is in better hands.
Well Johnny-Cakes I believe it is just that easy! Your priorities are your own, as for me I would do without any and all this technology and modern convienence if it meant we could take these terrorist corporate government thugs down and regain power to stop this insanity. The problem right now is that they know there are more people like you that feel they can not make the sacrifice to do without even temporarily in order to realize the bigger picture beyond themselves, then there are those like me who can and do. They know you’ll complain, but as long as you keep paying your bill it’s all good for them. They know they have the power because people like you finance it.
I do not do business with either AT&T or Comcast..I have a local provider, but if I ever find out that they are participating in this kind of behavior I will cancel my account pronto! I would rather do without than be a slave to this terrorist corporate government system.
The bigger picture by the way is that it all contributes to their ability to wage illegal wars on other nations, kill thousands of innocents, terrorize their own citizens as well as those of other nations, ignore and abandon the very people they claim to represent, cater to special interests that fund corporate welfare and add to their own personal wealth, fund international terrorist groups, poison our planet and the evironment we depend on for our very lives, economically enslave millions, ignore their own laws, lie, cheat, steal, deceive, cover up & brainwash all in the name of God and their people.This American government, it’s corporate supporters and most of it’s citizens are walking contradictions…saying one thing and doing the opposite. Proof of this is in news reports that claim that approval is the lowest ever for a presidential administration…hmmmmm, then why are they still in office? And those of us who take a stand for peace, equality and freedom of all people, those of us who offer an alternative to this insanity and are truly willing to do right are treated harshly because we have the courage the rest lack. We have only ourselves to blame for the current state of affairs we are experiencing now and we are the only ones who can determine our future. As for me, I have taken responsiblity for my part and am taking action to rectify it. I will no longer live in contradiction, my actions will reflect my words and my beliefs, even if it means making temporary sacrifices now.
This government and it’s corporate supporters count on the majority of Americans and indeed now even other nations in not being able to visualize the bigger picture, instead you are so wrapped up in your own little existence that you are blind to the realities of the future you are helping to create. And the government controlled corporate media helps to brainwash you into complaince and contentment. Microchip implants, idividual tracking, global economic slavery and control of necessary resources, destruction of the planet and environment our continued existence depends on and other unimagined horrors, but as long as you have access to your technology and convienences you’ll not worry yourself with the rest!
I will not aplogize for this post or “ranting” as you put it….as often as the lies are told, the truth must also be be told.
Tomorrow’s news: Fruit of the Loom claims to own the contents of your shorts.
I feel better – just cancelled 3 ATT business line accounts due to this.
Shocked that the 3rd person at ATT I spoke with (worked my way up the food chain to a mid-senior ATT manager who knew nothing about this loss of privacy issue).
Have emailed my entire email list letting the non-geeks who might have/use ATT know about this. Trust one thing – Money talks to ANY corporation – even if you dont have an ATT account, call them up and still bitch to them about this. If this crap isn’t stopped now, it will only get worse for all of us.
Well, It’s one thing to be idealistic like Darlene and do things on principal…but some of us rely on the Internet to make a living. What do you propose then Darlene? Perhaps I should just give up what I’m doing too and go live in a cardboard box?
But hey, I’ll be free of those “terrorist corporate government thugs” while living on the street….and I could even wear tin-foil under my stocking-cap to keep the “terrorist corporate government thugs” from reading my thoughts too! That will show them!
I’ll sign off now as I’ve been online too long. If you stay online too long they have a special thought-ray that will brainwash you and make you one of them!